As an ignition apparatus of an internal combustion engine, a characteristic in that a secondary voltage rapidly rises is required to obtain favorable ignition performance against smoldering of a spark plug. Meanwhile, a characteristic in that discharge time is long is required to favorably maintain lean burn and normal combustion. However, to rapidly raise the secondary voltage, energy is discharged over a short amount of time by the number of secondary windings of an ignition coil being reduced or the like. Therefore, the discharge time is shortened. In this way, the requirement for these two characteristics causes a contradiction. Here, the two requirements can be simultaneously met by multiple discharge being performed through use of a plurality of ignition coils and the characteristics of individual ignition coils being combined.
As a configuration that meets the two requirements, there is a configuration in which a cylindrical ignition coil (stick coil) is set between a spark plug and a rocker cover, and a rectangular ignition coil is connected to an upper end portion of the stick coil and placed on the rocker cover (refer to PTL 1). In the configuration described in PTL 1, the two ignition coils can be compactly arranged, and an ignition apparatus having a multiple discharge characteristic can be reduced in size.